How Much Liquidity Do You Want?

How Much Liquidity Do You Want?

I am currently in operation horde cash, for two reasons, we want to eventually move (within a year to 18 months) and cash is king when negotiating, and two we are expecting our first child at the end of the year.

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Evan is the owner of My Journey to Millions which was started to track his journey from a broke debt ridden law school graduate to building a positive balance. Need more Evan? Follow him on Twitter, Contact him or get new posts directly to your email

I stopped at $250K because after that I think cash may be unwise to keep building…maybe bond/bond funds, gov’t paper, CDs, corp paper, etc. I guess that is still liquid but I was really looking for how much CASH you believe is too much

Well, as much as it takes. Currently, less than 10k because I don’t see myself buying anything more expensive than that. If I was looking to buy a 100k house, then 100k in cash would be the magic number.

I’m sitting here with my baby (Evan!) and looking at our goals, including cash reserves. Babies are great motivators! For us 100K in cash is a good target, but I think it’s totally dependent on your situation/goals/expenses.

There will be a point in your life when you are happy with the nut you have. Let’s say you have $1 mill a year in cash. It’s giving you $40,000 in gross interest income a year. To many, that’s good enough b/c it’s guaranteed. In 18 years time, your $1mil will be guaranteed to equal $2 million.

There is NO guarantee in any of your investments, period. TIPS? you get crap yield.

I voted for $25,000 since that’s what our normal target range is…anything over that is either put towards our mortgage, in equities, or in CD’s usually (well, Smarty Pig right now since they are almost the same rate at 1 year CD’s…pathetic, lol).

If by cash you mean savings account cash then I think you can have too much. If you know you won’t need the money for some time then CD’s may be a better bet for some of you money since you should get a better rate. If you aren’t sure when you need the money then by all means stock up the cash.

When we sold our co-op we weren’t sure when we were going to buy a house. We knew we were going to look within a year so we didn’t lock up our sale money and kept in in savings (high yield).

I voted for $10,000, because that is our “feel good emergency fund” level. After we reach that, (we are currently going to dip way below that because we are paying off the rest of our non-mortgage debt in one fell swoop in August–hurrah!), then we will start investing again.

I selected $50K only because you mentioned moving. Does that include needing a down payment on a house? If so, then $50K would be appropriate and anything more than that would be great for investing. If you didn’t mean purchasing a home, then I guess I’d say $10K.

After $50,000 in savings, I’d devote more money to a mix of index funds and bonds to try to achieve a better return over a long term. That money wouldn’t necessarily be in retirement accounts. They could just be in a taxable brokerage account.

The $50,000 would be able to cover me for expenses such as doctor’s visits, car repairs, and mortgage payments. If I did need more money, I could always take money out of the investment accounts, though taxes and other fees would be involved. But I’d like the extra money to work harder for me.

I’m with Sam on this one. The bigger the nut, the more safe income it generates….of course, I also like to dabble in some risky ventures, but that’s a little more entrepreneurial focused than assest selection. And I’ve still got a LONG way to go before I’ve hit any magic numbers.

6 months pay or 10% of your net worth (whichever is larger) – arguably two very different numbers, but it depends on where you are at in life. Finite totals like $100K, if your 23 years old, seem a little ridiculous. However if you assign 6 months or 10% it becomes relevant regardless of age. I picked 6 months due to the fact in this economy who knows what is bound to happen to you. I picked 10% for the same reason. If the dow drops 1000 points in one day that 10% is going to look like a really smart play and will help you sleep better.

My Journey to Millions

My Journey to Millions is an 8 year old personal finance blog focused on topics including basic personal finance issues, advanced insurance planning, high net worth estate planning. In addition, there is a particular focus on dividend growth investing and option trading.